


Detour from Area 77

by Waterfall



Series: Time to Square [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Gen, Time Travel Shenanigans, Watcher!Grian, the crossover waiting to happen, the doctor is not impressed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27729328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waterfall/pseuds/Waterfall
Summary: What if Grian's time machine didn't take the Hippies straight back to Hermitcraft Alpha? What if it had a run-in with another time traveller on the way?or,The Doctor really needs to fix his security system. Rose just wants to know how it's possible to live in a world without circles.
Series: Time to Square [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1838146
Comments: 2
Kudos: 55
Collections: Froday Flash Fiction Little & Monthly Specials 2020





	Detour from Area 77

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **FFFC 100th Special Challenge Table A:** 81 – accident 
> 
> Well, this took a small forever to finish! It’s done now and I’m pretty happy with it, even though it’s been a long time since I wrote or watched Nine and Rose. I do love my crossovers, and this will not be the last you see of the Doctor, although chapter 2 might take another small forever before it shows up. Enjoy!

Grian, Ren and Impulse clung to each other as the time machine rocked and shook.

“This is incredible!” Impulse cried, almost falling over. Grian grinned at him.

“Just wait until – whoa!”

The stop was even more sudden than the start, and the three Hermits fell over in a heap.

“Was that what we were waiting for?” Ren asked, untangling his tail from Impulse’s leg and getting up to open the door. Halfway there, he stopped. “Do you hear voices?”

They all sat in silence, realizing that there was indeed a loud voice outside the door.

“…amateurish piece of junk, who would be stupid enough to travel in something like this?”

Taking that as a cue, Ren opened the door. 

“That would be us. Hi.”

The man on the other side barely paused in his rant.

“And do you have any idea what this thing could do to the space time continuum? It could blow up any minute, spreading contamination and debris everywhere!”

“It’s not that bad,” Grian argued from the floor, only a little intimidated by the skinhead in a leather jacket who was now peering into the machine. The man blinked at the feeble protest, seemingly noticing the people inside for the first time.

“…and who are you three?”

“I’m Ren,” said Ren from beside him. He gestured to the two others, who were helping each other off the floor. “That’s Impulse and Grian, our driver.”

“Yeah, about that,” Impulse shot in. “Where are we? I’m guessing we’re not on the Hermitcraft world anymore?”

“What’s Hermitcraft?” a girl’s voice asked from outside, her British accent making her sound a bit like Stress. “What’s happening, Doctor? I can’t see a thing!”

The man stepped aside and gestured for the three Hermits to step outside. 

“We’ve got visitors. But from somewhere that shouldn’t really be possible anymore… or so I thought.”

“Why is that? Oh!”

Ren stepped out, almost straight into the young woman who jumped back in surprise.

“Sorry, my lady, didn’t see you there.” Ears perking up, he swept her a bow, finishing off with a wink. 

“I’m Rose,” she answered with an engaging grin, and Ren’s cheeks reddened slightly. Behind him Impulse choked off a laugh.

“Hi.” He turned to the man called the Doctor, frowning. “What do you mean it shouldn’t be possible?”

The Doctor huffed and pulled a hand though his close-cropped hair.

“Just what I’m saying! The Hermitcraft world – or worlds – are part of a parallel universe to our own. Access to those were closed off… well, some time ago.” He trailed off, Rose looking curiously at him. 

“Doctor…”

“Anyway!” he interrupted. “That’s – hey! Hands off the console!”

Grian jumped backwards and hid his hands behind his back. 

“I didn’t touch anything!”

For the first time the two other Hermits took their focus off the strangers and looked around.

“Whoa.”

They were in a dome-shaped room made from warmly coloured borderless blocks, except for the round console in the middle that glowed with an eerie blue-green light. Grian was currently backing away from there into one of the strangely organic-shaped pillars that supported the roof. The walls were lined with flat discs, and thick black wires were hanging from the ceiling.

“Everything’s so _round_ ,” Ren said with awe. The Doctor laughed.

“That’s right, you people have a strained relationship with circles, don’t you?”

“Hey, can you blame us?” Impulse argued, running his hand across the wall. “It’s hard to make something round when everything’s based on squares.”

Rose was looking between the three Hermits, a puzzled expression on her face. 

“You don’t... have circles?”

“We can make them,” Grian explained, appearing beside her so suddenly it made her squeak in surprise. “But all our building blocks are square, and circles don’t appear naturally.”

“Not spheres either,” Impulse added.

She looked at the Doctor. 

“But how is that possible?”

Spreading his arms in an expansive gesture, he gave a shrug.

“I honestly don’t know. It goes against several laws of nature, but I’ve seen it myself. Actually–” He stopped, and leaned forwards to peer at Ren. “Have we already met?”

Ren peered back.

“No, not that I know. No offence, but I think I’d remember meeting a... a circlean.”

Half-way on his way back to the console, Grian collapsed into giggles.

“You can’t call someone that!” Impulse exclaimed, horror and amusement mingling in his voice.

“Why not? He’s from a world of circles, isn’t he?”

“That’s like calling us – uh – squarians!”

“But we’re not square!”

“And he’s not circular either! What’s your point?”

As the two Hermits kept arguing, the Doctor looking on as if he was trying to figure something out, Rose snuck up to Grian, who was still muffling his giggles while he leaned over the closest instrument panel.

“Find anything interesting?” she whispered, and he straightened with a small jump.

“Nothing! I mean... what?”

He gave her big puppy eyes, and she grinned cheekily at him.

“Don’t try, I know how that works. How do you think I get him,” she gestured towards the Doctor, “to listen to me at all?” 

Grian nodded, and they shared an understanding look between two people who knew all too well what it was like being small, cute, and generally overlooked.

“I just want to know how this all works. My time machine is a cobbled-together experiment, really, but this place is just... a work of art.”

At his words, the console beneath his hands glowed faintly gold, and he hastily drew back as he felt a tingle in his fingertips.

“Are you flirting with my ship?” the Doctor asked, no longer distracted by whatever thoughts he might have had earlier.

“Um... which answer will get me out of trouble?”

Turning his puppy eyes on the Doctor, Grian tried his best to look innocent. The snickers from Rose beside him did little to help his image, but the Doctor just scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Looking won’t help you anyway, this is too advanced for any of you.”

“I don’t know about that,” Ren argued, “Impulse here is pretty good at redstone contraptions.”

The man in question shook his head, hands ghosting over a control panel before he knelt down to look at the wiring covering its underside. 

“No, the Doctor is right. I can see some similarities – I’m guessing that these wires conduct the signal like redstone would, for instance – but most of this is completely foreign to me.”

Hearing that, Ren and Grian looked at each other, their faces showing varying combinations of surprise, awe, and a little fear. To them the redstoner seemed like an endless fountain of knowledge, never having encountered a redstone contraption he couldn’t figure out if only given enough time.

“This really is a whole different universe, isn’t it?” Grian asked, his normally boisterous voice closer to a whisper.

“Yeah…” 

Impulse leaned back on his heels, gazing at the control panel as if it held the answer to questions he hadn’t even thought of asking. Ren placed a hand on his shoulder and turned to the Doctor.

“But if that’s the case, how _did_ we get here?” He glanced sheepishly at Grian. “No offence, Grian, but I don’t think you’re good enough at redstone to make a time machine that _hops universes_.”

Grian shook his head with fervour.

“None taken, because you’re _right_. I was surprised I got the thing working at all when I made it, honestly.”

“Were you really?”

“What do you mean?” 

The Doctor was studying Grian now, as if looking for something he just couldn’t see clearly.

“One thing I know about your type of world is that you’re not really meant to have time travel. A time machine really _shouldn’t_ be able to function. Unless…” His gaze turned piercing, and Grian squirmed under the scrutiny. “Unless there’s something else at work here.”

“Ehehehe, I’m not sure what you mean?” Eyes wide, the shorter man took a step back from the Doctor’s looming presence. Sensing the change in the room the two other Hermits came up to him.

“Didn’t you used to be an admin?” Impulse suggested. “That might be it.” 

The Doctor shook his head.

“No, that’s not it.”

“What’s an admin?” Rose interjected, looking resignedly confused as if she was used to being the only one not in the know.

“Someone who can get into the code of the world and alter it – don’t ask for the details, they’ll only give you a headache,” the Doctor explained briefly, still glaring at Grian. He stared right back, his expression going from half-joking to serious.

“Look, if you think you know why this happened then you also know why I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

“No, it’s _not_ ‘okay’!” The Doctor gestured emphatically, making Impulse wince while Ren stepped closer to Grian, glancing nervously back and forth between his friend and the stranger. “That kind of power isn’t something you can just dismiss. And if you wanted –”

“I _didn’t_!”

There was genuine pain in the outburst, and before the Doctor could recover from his surprise Ren stepped between the two, shielding Grian from his view.

“That’s enough. Back off.”

“You think I would –” the Doctor begun, affronted, but stopped as a snarl filled the room. 

“Back. Off.”

“All right, all right.”

Hands raised, the Doctor took a few steps back, looking more fascinated than worried. Behind Ren, Grian discreetly wiped his eyes.

“Ren, you don’t have to…” he whispered before trailing off, looking like he wasn’t sure he meant what he was saying.

“Yes, he does,” Impulse disagreed, stepping up next to them. “We’re going to drop the subject now,” he told the Doctor. “If you can help us, that’s fine. If not, we’ll find a way on our own.”

The Doctor blinked.

“But you don’t even know –”

Another snarl filled the air, softer this time but unmistakably a threat. Impulse nodded sharply, his voice calm but unyielding.

“We don’t need to know. It’s Grian’s business, and he’ll tell us if he wants to.”

Looking like he wanted to keep arguing, the Doctor drew a breath but froze as Rose laid a hand on his arm.

“Doctor,” she said softly, and he looked down at her. She didn’t need to say anything else, as her eyes conveyed a message that he seemed to pick up right away, looking from her to the group of friends, Grian still hidden behind the other two. He slumped a little, the intense energy from earlier fading away.

“I guess I’m in no position to criticise.” Rose giggled softly at that, and he shot her an affronted look. “Although _some_ would say that’s never stopped me before. Right!” 

Ignoring the suspicious looks he was getting the Doctor clapped his hands together violently before he spun around and made for their makeshift time machine. “Well, come on!” he yelled over his shoulders. “Do you want to get this thing working again or not?”

Ren and Impulse shared a disbelieving look.

“Go on,” Rose said softly. “That’s probably the closest thing to an apology you’ll ever get from him.”

Behind his two guardians Grian snickered, only a slight hitch to his voice.

“I’ll take it.” He pushed his way through them, ignoring Impulse’s worried protests and Ren’s affronted shriek of laughter as he grazed just the right spot on his ribs as he passed by. “You heard the man,” he called, turning to walk backwards through the room, hands beckoning to his friends. His act might be casual, but his eyes showed his gratitude and affection to anyone who looked. “We have a time machine to fix.”

Shaking his head, Impulse gave a weak chuckle and followed him, dragging Ren along until his laughing fit subsided. “Sure, man. Whatever you say.”

It turned out that the passage from one universe to the other had depleted the time machine’s power source and also done something weird to the wiring – at which point Rose and Ren both zoned out and let the other three babble on without trying to follow the conversation any further. After some initial wariness Grian seemed to relax when the Doctor stayed strictly on the topic of engineering, and Impulse followed suit. Ren, on the other hand, was still watching the Doctor cautiously. He was currently sitting in the sofa by the console, drinking something yummy and fizzy that Rose called ‘cola’. 

“You really don’t have to worry,” the girl in question told him softly from the seat next to him. Her smile definitely was pretty, but Ren was a man with a mission right now. 

“What do you mean?”

He gave her a quick glance before going back to his guard duties.

“The Doctor might seem tough, but he’s just… trying so hard to protect everyone.” Sighing, she leaned back into the sofa, her shoulder gently bumping his as they stared at the trio currently trying to recharge one time machine with another. “Sometimes, he needs to be reminded that other beings are people too.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “He’s so alone… without me I don’t think he’d have _anyone_.”

This time Ren did turn his head and look at her properly.

“And what about you?” he asked.

“What about me?”

Big eyes blinked up at him, puzzled. 

“That’s a heavy burden, being responsible for a person like that.”

“I suppose it is,” she agreed, her eyes warm as she looked at the man in question. “But it’s worth it.” There was a dull thump and a woosh, and a cable on the floor caught fire. Before Ren could do more than get halfway out of the sofa the situation was dealt with, and Rose laughed. “Like you’re not doing the same with those two!”

He sank back down a little sheepishly.

“Well, that’s true I suppose.”

They lapsed back into companionable silence, Ren’s tail wagging slowly as he watched his friends. The air was warm and cosy, Rose was soft and smelled nice as they leaned on each other, and he could admit that he might be overreacting just a little. There was a strangely soothing hum all around them, and he decided it couldn’t hurt to close his eyes for just a moment…

“All right, sleepyheads, rise and shine!”

The sudden shout had Ren staggering to his feet, and Rose flailing as her headrest suddenly disappeared.

“What?” the Hermit barked. “Where?”

In front of him Grian and Impulse were laughing fondly, and Ren glared at them.

“We’re good to go,” Impulse explained with mirth in his voice, giving no indication as to which of the two had woken him and Rose so rudely.

“Already?” Rose asked sleepily from the couch, looking from the Doctor to the Hermits. “Aren’t you staying until tomorrow, at least?” 

The Doctor shook his head.

“Oh no, they’re going home! The TARDIS won’t survive a longer visit.”

“You mean _you_ won’t,” Grian corrected him, not seeming at all put out by the outburst.

_What did I miss?_ Ren telegraphed. Impulse grinned, and mimed back,

_I’ll tell you later_.

Only a few minutes afterwards they were on their way into their own little time machine.

“Now are you _sure_ this is going to work?” Ren asked.

“Of course!” Grian answered confidently, with did little to assuage his worries. The Doctor shook his head and handed a small device to Impulse.

“It should be fine, but if things don’t go to plan, you’ll be able to reach me with this. It’s got limited power though, so don’t overuse it.”

Impulse stared at it, then the Doctor, with surprised pleasure.

“I won’t. Thank you!”

“Don’t thank _me_ ,” he retorted, tilting his head towards Rose who was waving at them from further into the TARDIS. 

“Thank you!” Impulse repeated, his voice mingling with his friends’ as they said goodbye. Grian took a deep breath and started fiddling with the controls as the door closed on the bigger time machine and its inhabitants.

“All right, here goes nothing!”

The world went white.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to, you can also find me on tumblr as [@yuracek](https://yuracek.tumblr.com). I mostly reblog Hermitcraft-related things, but sometimes there may be hedcanons and stuff.


End file.
